Navigate:

How much do voters know?

Irrationality on policy issues transcends both party lines and opinions on the president. | Reuters

The present furor over gas prices is a case in point: Obama’s job approval dropped 9 points over the last month, according to a CBS/New York Times poll, as the cost of fuel has risen abruptly. The survey found that 54 percent of Americans believe that the president can do a lot to combat high gas prices.

That’s not really true, but it’s a dynamic that’s shown up in other polls too: 26 percent of respondents told an ABC News/Washington Post poll that they approve of Obama’s handling of gas prices, versus 65 percent who disapprove.

Text Size

-

+

reset

For voters to disapprove of Obama’s energy and economic policies may be completely rational. But to reassess a president’s performance in the context of a short-term increase in gas prices is more of a tantrum-like response to a new feeling of discomfort over which the president has relatively little control.

“Gas prices are a surrogate for Obama performance and evaluations of his job performance,” said Steve Lombardo, who worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2008 and is the head of the research and consulting firm StrategyOne. “Might not be fair but that is the way it is. The higher the gas prices the lower Obama’s approval rating.”

That calculus is fairly straightforward, though it’s one that has frustrated presidents of both parties for decades. Other examples of the befuddlement of the 2012 voter are tougher to decode.

Take bailouts, for example. Today, Americans loathe the Troubled Assets Relief Program even more than they did in 2008. In the thick of the ’08 financial crisis, 57 percent of respondents told Pew that government intervention was appropriate. Now, that number is 39 percent, extending an anti-bailout craze that helped drive the 2008 election.

But Americans aren’t opposed to all bailouts, apparently. Amid a flurry of positive earnings reports from GM and Chrysler – and a comeback story told enthusiastically by public figures from Obama to Clint Eastwood – a 56 percent majority of Americans now think bailing out the auto industry was good for the economy. That’s up from 37 percent in 2009, according to Pew.

Never mind the fact that the bank bailout has been at least as successful at reviving the financial sector as the auto rescue has been for Detroit.

A similar level of capriciousness is evident in foreign affairs. Americans’ views of their overseas entanglements has been on the decline. According to Gallup, just 54 percent of Americans now view the United States as the world’s preeminent military power – a 10-point drop since 2010. Last spring, Gallup tracked a quick reversal of public opinion on the intervention in Libya, going from a 10-point net positive public view to a 7-point net negative one over the course of a month. Sixty percent of voters now believe that the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting, according to ABC News and the Washington Post.

And yet, Obama – who escalated the Afghan war with a temporary troop surge – continues to break even or fare a bit better than that when it comes to foreign policy and national security. The ABC/Washington Post poll found 46 percent of voters approve of his handling of the war, while 47 percent disapprove. Those aren’t great numbers – except they look pretty good when three-fifths of the country think the war was a waste of time and effort.

Readers' Comments (366)

“The first lesson you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid,” said Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm. “I tell a client trying to make sense of numbers on a poll that are inherently contradictory that at least once a week.”

Well, yes Tom.

I offer the Progressive ruin of the once great state of California as the one and only exhibit needed to prove the case.

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

I think most voter's know there is little a President can do on a day to day basis. But when Obama says things like, "energy prices would necessarily soar", or he's "not a concerned about the price of gas as he is how quickly it rises", or his energy secretary says the US "needs gas at $8 or $9 / gallon, like Europe", just to be fair...that's scary. And his disdain for anything gas-driven (unless, of course, he's in front of a bunch of union workers at an auto plant), is so far from reality right now that it can't help but signal higher gas prices and tighter budgets for most Americans.

What goes around comes around. For the last years of the Bush administration the Dems harped everyday that the economy and higher gas prices were Bush's fault. HAHAHA now the people aren't stupid, they are only telling pollsters what they have been taught by the left to say. Only now, it's Obama fault not Bush.

What goes around comes around. For the last years of the Bush administration the Dems harped everyday that the economy and higher gas prices were Bush's fault. HAHAHA now the people aren't stupid, they are only telling pollsters what they have been taught by the left to say. Only now, it's Obama fault not Bush.

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

I think this is another desparate attempt by the left to say that they are smarter than everyone else and we should listen to them. Sorry, media. People don't trust you any more than they trust Congress. People have also started paying attention to politics in greater numbers because of the economic difficulties they're living with. Obama has failed us on energy policy, economic policy, foreign policy, and even his 'successes' don't look that way if you look at the results instead of intentions. Obama could lower gas prices if he really wanted to just as Bush did in his day, not that liberal media would give him credit for it anymore than they'll call out Obama on his policy. Beyond 10 years out, that poorly crafted piece of legislation known as Obamacare will add trillions annually to the deficit - a far cry from cutting costs as promised because it doesn't address real cost drivers in medicine except to add insult to injury.

Whoever the GOP nominee is gets my vote. The leftist media doesn't admit this, but the national debt has accelerated at an unprecedented rate under Obama, and it wasn't pretty to start with. It now EQUALS our entire GDP. Reported first in the UK, because the news media here isn't honest enough to do so. This debt doesn't even count the fact that things like Obamacare won't add into the total debt until all parts of the law go into effect, and you can count on the fact that it will be much more expensive than projected, just like any other government program. To top off the horrible debt, all branches of the federal government get an automatic 10% increase in budget each year, based upon spending of the previous year. This is since the 1974 Budget Reform Act. Any proposal to lower the automatic increases are met with cries of "Draconian cuts!" from the left. It doesn't take a mathematician to realize this is unsustainable growth and will quickly turn us into the EU if we aren't already. We can't afford more of Barack Obama.

If this is news, consider your sources. You've got to read both sides because both sides leave stuff out.

Ok I challenge anyone to post something that doesn't have one finger-pointing, name-calling element in it. What should the President do about gas prices? What kind of leadership do we want to see? Is he to just shrug his shoulders and say "well I accused the previous President when prices were high but now I realize, as President, I can't do anything about it." I'd like to see some leadership from him. Somehow, it seems, that offends people.

Possum and squirrel taste really good with some BBQ sauce. You liberal/progressive/socialist/communist/OWS/99%ers/union thugs democrats ought to try it sometime. Come on down and we'll fry ya'll up a batch. LOL